| Korean Air Flight 902 |
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The Boeing 707 aircraft departed from Paris, France on a course to Anchorage, Alaska , where it was intended to refuel and proceed to Seoul, South Korea . The aircraft was not fitted with an Inertial Navigation System , and the pilots in their navigation calculations used the wrong sign of Magnetic Declination when converting between magnetic and true headings. This caused the plane to fly in an enormous right-turning arc, which eventually caused the aircraft to head south across the Barents Sea toward Soviet airspace. Sukhoi Su-15 fighter jets were scrambled. According to the United States, the fighters were ordered to shoot down the aircraft, and one pilot of an Su-15 attempted for several minutes to cancel this order, reporting that the aircraft was a civilian 707 and not a military RC-135 (which is built on a 707 fuselage). The order was confirmed, and two rockets were fired; one missed, and the other caused heavy damage to part of the left wing and punctured the fuselage, causing Rapid Decompression and killing two passengers. The pilots descended to 5000 feet in clouds, looked for a place to land, and, after several unsuccessful attempts, landed on the frozen Korpijärvi Lake on the Finnish border. The 107 survivors were rescued by Russian helicopters. SOURCES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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